The Wall Street Journal is reporting in 2 separate articles recently that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) revised their last 5 years of sales data downward to reflect, apparently, reality.
Imagine that.
The net effect is that the housing bust we have experienced so far is much worse than the NAR had originally reported:
“A real-estate trade group said Monday it plans to lower its estimates of how many homes were sold in the U.S. since 2007, after analysts came up with evidence that the group was overestimating sales.
Earlier this year, outside analysts called into question some of the assumptions behind the trade group’s data. For example, Corelogic, Inc., an independent housing data firm, found a far smaller number of home sales by tracking property records through local courthouses.”
Links to both Wall Street Journal articles –
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/12/12/realtors-to-revise-2007-2011sales-data-down/
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2011/12/12/housing-bust-to-look-worse-with-sales-revised/
